


None may teach it

by zinjadu



Series: Wed to Blight [37]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Silly, Snark, Snow, Snowball Fight, Winter, camp time is the best time, the Warden is still a teenager guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-29 12:51:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20082511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu
Summary: The road cannot always be grim and dire.  Sometimes you wake up and the snow has fallen a foot deep, and you know what must be done.Hit your boyfriend right in the ear with a perfect snowball.Note: Written during the polar vortex of 2019.  Hope this provides some mental relief from the summer heat this August!  :)





	None may teach it

Caitwyn considered the snowball in her gloved hands. It was decent, the snow itself heavy and prone to clumping together. Thoughtfully, she brushed a little off the top. 

“There, much better. What do you think, boy?” Maethor sniffed at the snowball and wuffed his approval. He stood in the heavy layer of chest-deep-on-a-dog snow like a moored river scow. The cold didn’t seem to bother him at all, even if she wore three layers of socks and her toes were pinched.

Better pinched toes than cold toes.

“I think that’s enough,” she said and tossed the ball in the air experimentally. It held together well and she could put a little bit of spin on it, even. She grinned in the thin, grey light of the morning. No one else had emerged from their tents yet, still partially buried under last night’s snowfall. Before now, the snow had been thin and powdery. Not much of an impediment to movement, but not good for much either.

Now, even the downy winter birds were quiet and the day itself was hushed under the thick blanket of snow that had appeared as if by magic.

Caitwyn hunkered down just at the tree line, easily out of sight, and waited.

Like cold treacle, the light of the sun edged over the horizon, and she caught the little cries of dismay at the snow. She eyed her accumulated stock of ammunition. The snow in Denerim never stayed white for long. Too quickly it picked up filth and rocks and nails.

This snow, however, was pristine and perfect.

Too tempting to pass up.

Leliana was first out of her tent, but Caitwyn held back. They had only started to rebuild bridges, and she didn’t want to be cruel. Besides, there was something to be said for making an impact on others. Sten was next, but that might be biting off more than she could chew. Shale roused herself a little then. The golem kept watch, but she often “rested” when she noticed Caitwyn was awake. If Sten was a bad target, Shale was  _ worse _ . Morrigan emerged from her own tent, and Caitwyn didn’t think getting into a snowball fight with a woman who could make her own blizzard was a good idea.

Wynne presented a similar problem, and she was old besides. That didn’t seem fair. Zevran huddled miserably in blankets, and that was just too pitiful to contemplate.

Alistair, however, looked about cheerfully at the snow like a boy on Feastday morning.

Could she?  _ Should _ she? 

Her fellow Warden, friend…  _ whatever _ he was, he inhaled deeply and she caught a chipper, “Bracing!”

Eyes narrowed, her arm moved before she could think about it. Too late, the snowball flew toward her quasi-intentional target with terrible accuracy. It splatted wetly against his ear.

* * *

_ Cold _ . Cold and wet and  _ right in his ear _ . 

“AH!” The scream was loud and unmanly, but sweet Maker he didn’t care. Someone had just  _ sneak attacked him _ . Sten’s lips thinned but twitched upwards, and Shale didn’t even bother to hide  _ her _ rumbling laughter.

“My friend, are you well?” Zevran asked archly, and that was it. 

“Me? Well? Oh, that’s so  _ kind _ of you.” Alistair let his voice drip with false sweetness, which Zevran heard, but the cold made him sluggish and before he could jump away, Alistair scooped up a handful of snow and flung it in the Crow’s face. “Much better, yes!”

With great aplomb, Zevran brushed the snow off his face with only a momentary flicker of ire. “You will pay for that, my friend.”

“Oh I don’t think—” Alistair twisted out of the way, and the snow hit Sten square in the chest. The qunari glanced down and frowned with a heavy brow at the wet snow sloughing off his thick, padded jerkin. 

“Run,” Zevran breathed, and Alistair’s feet were moving before chaos descended. Sten quickly compacted snow and sought his revenge, but Alistair and Zevran ran in opposite directions. One snowball grazed his shoulder as he circled behind a tent. Zevran ran serpentine, and madly ran backwards for a second.

“Come now, Sten! You cannot hit the broad side of a Ferelden!” he taunted. Sten’s frown deepened, and he chased after the Crow. Leliana giggled, and then gasped as snow pelted the back of her head from the treeline. Squinting, Alistair tried to see who had done that, but no one was visible.

Leliana, however turned around and only saw Shale. With a graceful dip, the bard scooped up snow and fired away.

“The sister has accosted me like a bird!” the golem shouted. Leliana, realizing the depths of her mistake ran, but Shale gathered up two fistfulls of snow and made a snow-boulder. The golem hurled it, but it broke apart and rained down over the camp where Wynne still sat primly, drinking her tea as if nothing were amiss.

“Wynne!” he cried out, but it was too late. He couldn’t make the distance. Then Wynne raised her hand and a shimmering blue nimbus surrounded her. The snow bounced harmlessly off of her, and she sipped at her still steaming tea before she graced him with a pleased smile.

The tent he stood next to rumbled, and Oghren poked his head out. “What the sodding hell is going on?”

“Um, snowball fight?”

“I can see that, boy.  _ Why? _ ”

Before he could answer, another snowball struck from apparently nowhere. Aimed and delivered with terrible accuracy right in the dwarf’s ear. 

He was pretty sure he knew  _ who _ , at least.

* * *

Caitwyn bit her lip to keep from laughing. A snowball here, another there, and she had unleashed chaos. The best part was that  _ no one had any idea _ . Her, all her. Like when she’d been a child and had her run of Denerim’s rooftops, defending her patch and sending the shem street children running with her clever pranks and traps.

“Cait!”

She hunkered down quickly. Maethor tensed and growled, ready for a threat. 

“Cait! Come on out, cease fire, alright?”

How’d he know? 

“My dear, you were most conspicuous by your absence.”

“Though you engineered many well-timed distractions, you were the only possible instigator.”

Raising her head, she was thankfully screened from direct view by a thicket of brush, but at her movement, Leliana pointed. “There she is!”

“You got me right in the ear, girl!”

She turned to Maethor, who sat back on his haunches with his tongue lolling out, and grimaced. “Alright, maybe that was a bit mean.”

“Cait! We’re not mad.”

“ _ I _ am.” Shale’s rumble was something Caitwyn could feel through her boots and layers of socks. That had probably been a mistake, getting Shale involved. But it had been so…  _ fun _ .

“Shale, you had fun, too, you must admit,” Leliana said in her very reasonable tones. The other woman was smiling and breathless and bright. There was a lightness in their shoulders, even Sten’s and Oghren’s. 

“I do not have to admit to an incorrect claim.”

“Ah, but I believe I saw you throw snow with such great enthusiasm, my stony friend. Surely, you found this at least somewhat amusing.”

“The painted elf would be amusing if stuck head down in a snow drift.”

“Cait!” Alistair called again. “Come on, no hard feelings. We all had good fun, promise.”

Like a fox popping up from its burrow, she appeared and eyed them all warily. “You promise?”

Nods all around. She left the safety of the treeline and sidled to camp. Alistair smiled crookedly, and his hair, sticking up every which way from a combination of sleep and the snowballs to the head, made her fingers itch to smooth it down. As if he knew how he affected her, he sauntered forward to meet her, and the warm nearness of him made her heart skip a beat. With bare fingers, he tipped up her chin and pressed his lips to hers. 

Right in front of everyone.

Her eyes went wide, and she nearly broke away, but he was so close and here and— 

A burst of ice-cold wet snaked down her neck and back.

“Ee!” Involuntarily, she arched away as the snow sluiced underneath her gambeson and chilled her whole body. Alistair was already running, and the others scattered.

“You earned that!”

Snowballs flew like a sudden blizzard with Caitwyn neatly caught in the crossfire and isolated from her supplies. “You’re gonna pay for that!” she cried as she dodged some, but not all, of the projectiles.

“You must catch us first!” Leliana teased, and Caitwyn grinned. She was spoiled for targets. Dashing through the middle of camp on the chance, she passed by Wynne. Wynne who sat completely undisturbed under a shield of magic.

Then the old woman winked.

A small pile of snow swirled magically in front of Caitwyn, ready to be made into ammunition. 

As Caitwyn picked her targets and struck, eliciting a yelp from another precision strike to the back of the neck she thought maybe she should go back to her math studies. Wynne still had the books; it wasn’t smart to let opportunities such as these slip by.


End file.
